It’s been a busy Thanksgiving-themed week! Our class has been having conversations about all of the things we are grateful for. We filled out feathers to add to the school turkey and we wore tags displaying our gratitude.

In math we have been working in groups to solve our turkey problems. It has proved to be fun and engaging. Check out our hard work below!

Suggested Interview Questions” for the Molly’s Pilgrim Project are due Monday, December 5th. Students should interview their “pilgrim” (or relative/friend of a pilgrim) and record their answers on a separate piece of paper.

What is your full name? Are you a pilgrim? If not, who is the pilgrim you will tell me about?

What country and city did you come from?

Was it a difficult decision to come to America?

Tell me about your life in your home country, such as friends and things you did in your spare time.

What city and state did you arrive in (U.S.)?

What year did you leave your country to come to the United States?

Tell me about the journey from your country. Did you come on a boat, plane, or car to the U.S.? How long did it take? Explain in detail.

How old were you when you came to the U.S.?

Why did you leave your country?

Did you come to the U.S. with anyone else? If so, who?

Tell me about your family.

What was your job in your first country? What was your job in the U.S.?

When you came to the U.S. what did you do first?

What do you miss about your home town?

What do you love about the U.S.?

Do you ever travel back to your old country? Why or why not?

Are you happy with your decision to come to the U.S.?

If the person is no longer alive, when did they die?

*Feel free to write your own questions!

I hope everyone has an enjoyable and safe Thanksgiving with family and friends.

Students at the Kennedy School have completed a week of “Gratitude” activities. Students shared the things they are grateful for in classroom discussions, on a turkey in the cafe, and on a sticker that they wore for an entire school day. Many students also participated in a canned food drive and they met with their fifth grade buddies to write a letter to someone they are grateful to have in their lives.

In mathematics, the children have been practicing their multiplication facts on daily timed tests. Some students are still trying to beat the two facts, while others have moved onto the three and four tables. Students should be practicing their multiplication facts at home to increase their fact fluency. Also, since we are focusing our time on multiplication in school, please review addition and subtraction on the number line in order to maintain and improve these skills.

In English Language Arts, students have been learning and practicing the roles of clarifier, questioner, and predictor as part of the Reciprocal Teaching model. Reciprocal teaching refers to an instructional activity where students become the teacher in small groups. The students are learning these roles so that they can learn to guide group discussions about the texts they have been reading. After the Thanksgiving break students will be learning about the summarizing role and how to identify the main idea and details about what they’ve read. Below you can see the cards students use to guide their discussions in their groups.

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The students have been learning many new things about nonfiction texts, such as how to identify nonfiction text features and how to use strategies to figure out what new vocabulary words mean. The children have also been using “stems” to write about their predictions, to share what they’ve learned, and to tell how they know what a new vocabulary word means. Below are a few of the anchor charts students use in the classroom to assist their learning.

The children have been working together in their groups and they are continually self-assessing what is working well in their group discussions and the things that they need to work on. Here are some photographs of the students in their groups from this past week.

In the upcoming week we will be reading Molly’s Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen, developing interview questions for our pilgrim interview project, and solving a challenging Thanksgiving turkey math problem. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!